at summer’s end, on her 20th birthday — despite being “kind of terrified,” she says — she got up and did a few bits about her job at a summer camp. People laughed. She marvels, “I was really shocked — it went really well.” She tried it (and liked it) again a few times at school. After graduating with a bachelor’s de-
gree in psychology, she moved back to her parents’ house and took a comedic hiatus for a few years, because, she says, “I was scared and thought I wouldn’t fit in.” She muddled half-heartedly through a series of unsatisfying journalism in- ternships, and three years ago got up the nerve to test herself again during an open mike night at Soho Tea & Coffee near Dupont Circle. With a friend there for support, she managed to do a four- minute bit. A few other comics who were watching complimented her afterward. “I felt on top of the world,” she says. Two years ago, she appeared in the
Korean American family or George Lo- pez’s riffs on Latino culture. Nancherla grew up fairly steeped in Indian culture, eating traditional Indian food at home, and traveling with her India-born par- ents (both are physicians who speak their native language, Telugu, to each other) to southeastern India every other year. Their large home is filled with Hindu statues and photos of family in Indian dress; the fridge is stocked with curries. Nancherla’s older sister, Bhavana, 30, a community organizer in New York, was
born in India, and has a deep affinity for her Indian roots. But Nancherla, born and raised in the Washington area, says her ethnicity “is not a strong identifier for me. I identify more with being a shy, quiet person.” It’s easy to see why she’s living at
home at age 28: It’s comfortable here, and her parents dote on her and make sure she eats plenty of home-cooked meals. Plus, the rent’s free. She was never a rebellious child in her
Previous page: Comedian aparna nacherla with the stuffed animals she performed for as a child. Above: nacherla waiting to perform at Ri Ra in arlington with, from left, Jason saenz, Jeff Maurer and Curt shackelford. Left: The comedian in the spotlight.
close-knit family. Her mother, Suchithra, an endocrinologist who practices in Falls Church, remembers Nancherla at age 7 or 8 saying, “I like to make people happy.” As a teenager at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Nancherla was not, she says, the class clown, but rather the sar- donic observer on the sidelines wielding “a very active inner monologue.” An A student, she applied for and was
accepted to both West Point and Amherst College (“I sort of glossed over the weap- ons part of it,” she says of her interest in a military career). She chose Amherst, and during a summer at home had her first standup experience, at Wiseacres, a now-defunct bar in a Best Western hotel in McLean. She’d been dropping by oc- casionally with a group of friends and began writing down a few ideas. Finally,
audition round of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” and had a few emcee jobs at the DC Improv, a gig that’s a nice step- ping stone for local comedians. With each small success and taste of the comic world beyond the Beltway — she performed at 10 festivals around the country last year — she has become more resolved to quit her day job and make comedy a career.
it is a few months before Yount will move to Los Angeles, and Nancherla is driving him in her parents’ gray Volvo to open mike night at the Arlington Cin- ema ’N’ Drafthouse, where both will perform. On the way, they stop on 16th street to pick up Nancherla’s friend, Hillary Buckholtz, 30, a bubbly publi- cist by day who has been taking comedy classes at the DC Improv. Tonight will be her fourth public standup show. Waiting outside Buckholtz’s apart-
ment building, Yount, who has a relaxed, gregarious comic style, spies a for- lorn-looking chair parked on the street corner. “What is this, some sort of make- shift office?” he says. Nancherla giggles. Almost everything they notice is poten- tial joke material between them. He and Nancherla met several years
ago at the Topaz open mike, where, Yount remembers, “I walked right up to her and said, ‘You’re hysterical. I think
December 19, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine 23
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